This stand-alone component in an interconnected trilogy that includes Bren’t Lewiis Ensemble’s Cavoli Riscaldati and Occupy Infantry announces itself as a tribute to Hollywood’s most psychedelic round of exquisite corpse. Recorded in Portland, Oregon, at Shiva’s Pyramid by Lucian Tielens, Limphoma and Gnarlos under the influence of King Tubby, The Frogs, and shared fantasies about a 30th Century interpretation of Grey Gardens, the foundational spwahaohao could easily pass as the soundtrack for a demented, Justice-Schanfarber-hosted travelogue worthy of public access TV. The ingredients manifest includes: jumbush; damaged sitar; shamisen-type thing; kalimba seemingly custom-made for Richard Keel; suitcase zipper; messed-up log with big lead bolts, wire, and sounding gourd attached (like a Gambian ko that could double as a cudgel for a midget Viking); metal lid from tea canister; ScratchBox; air mattress pump; acoustic guitar; toy ukulele; flutish wind-instrument made of wood; Velcro; big exercise ball; bells; lychee-shaped keychain; metal ruler; plastic lid from a bottle of hot flash pills; homemade zither; cat toy; aloe vera gel; mild dyspepsia; and wood scraped with pushpins.
These quiet, understated recordings are considerably gilded by overdubs of loops, tape manipulation, found noises, remote individual performances by Babuna Virus and The City Councilman, and group improv sessions. The concerns of squaresville Rockwell prototypes squirt their influence everywhere, represented by collages of bacon-huffing evangelic scam artist Susan Alamo, instructional ventriloquist records, audio documents of a hayseed family’s first tape recorder, philosophical musings of thrift store gurus, and sad self-help workshops.
Additionally, two tracks from Bren’t Lewiis’s 1984 cassette Make It Stop are here: “Raoul Being Frightened By The Tiny Bear” (a duet for drumsticks grinding against a beat up acoustic guitar) and “Meditations On The Loss Of An Eye” (featuring Mr. Dolphin’s spidery guitar-playing that chews holes through short wave radio and melodica).
The end result is the red-headed stepchild of Pork Queen’s Strang geeking the sort of quasi-shaman visions present on Buffy Saint-Marie’s Illuminations covertly harassed by parasitic sociopaths, temple desecrators, and a language-impaired tribe locked in a basement long after the tornado has passed.
credits
released August 24, 2016
Participants: Tom Timpson, The City Councilman, Lucian Tielens, Lindy Lettuce, Gnarlos, Limphoma, Babuna Virus, Lily McBilly, Fuzzy, Mr. Dolphin
Recorded at: Shiva’s Pyramid, Portland; No Spray 205, San Francisco; Music On Fire, Long Beach; Howard Johnson, Pasadena; KCSC Prod Room, Chico; Hotel Zurich Toho 2001, Hiroshima; Hazel’s ’Lectric Washhouse, Oakland. Mixed and edited at No Spray 205.
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